Keat Ghee Ong (Bio Med/LSTI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $3,100 research and development grant from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The project is “An Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT).”
This is the first year of a potential 5-year project totaling $390,006.
Jeremy Goldman (Bio Med/IMP) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $217,791 research and development grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. Jaroslaw Drelich (MSE) is Co-PI on the project, “Exploratory Research to Suppress Intimal Hyperplasia by Controlling Zinc Implant Biodegradation.”
This is a one-year project.
Home Health Care News published an article about FM Wound Care, a start-up company that is awaiting FDA approval to market a product designed to prevent infection, based on technology developed by Megan Frost (Bio Med).
A biomedical engineer and a health care entrepreneur have teamed up to improve wound care with a product designed to prevent infection and reduce the need for some post-acute care, including home health.
FM Wound Care, LLC, based in Trenary, Michigan, is awaiting U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval on a nitric-oxide-infused, self-sterilizing wound dressing designed to kill bacteria following surgery. The post-op bandage could potentially reduce the need for some care performed by home health care providers, and lower overall wound care costs.
Megan C. Frost, PhD, and entrepreneur Jeff Millin believe their product—the Sentry Wound Dressing—prevents infections by slowly releasing nitric oxide (N.O.) over the course of seven days, allowing patients to wear the same wound dressing for a week.
Vice President for Research David Reed has awarded the following Century II Campaign Endowed Equipment Fund (C2E2) awards at the recommendation of the C2E2 Committee.
Reed thanks the review committee members for their participation in this internal award process. For additional information on the C2E2 opportunity, visit C2E2.
By Vice President for Research.
Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Sangyoon Han has been invited to give a discussion at the Chicago Cytoskeleton Symposium at Northernwestern University on October 20th, 2017.
His talk is entitled “Early competition of actin and vinculin for talin-binding dictates NA’s maturation and force transmission.”
The Chicago Cytoskeleton is a forum for cytoskeletal researchers from the greater Chicago area to meet, hear some great talks, exchange ideas, and socialize.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Babies with hypoplastic left heart syndrome may soon be able to forego risky surgery due to a device designed by doctors, students, and technicians from West Michigan.
The condition is complex: a portion of the baby’s heart is pumping with only one chamber instead of two.
Dr. Joseph Vettukattil, chief of pediatric cardiology at Spectrum Health, is working with Spectrum Health Innovations and students and staff from Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich.
Dr. Brent Mulder, the Senior Director of Spectrum Health Innovations, says the final product could take up to 10 years to complete, but the wait will be worth it.
Read more and watch the video at FOX 17 West Michigan, by Erica Francis.
The undergraduate student team involved in the project include Emma Davis, Kat Farkas, Amanda Gogola, and Ami Kling, Biomedical Engineering. Their advisors were Jeremy Goldman and Smitha Rao, Biomedical Engineering. For Design Expo 2017 at Michigan Tech, they prepared a project “Customizing Transcatheter Nitinol Stents for Treatment of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome in Infants” with abstract:
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is a congenital heart defect that is mainly characterized by the underdevelopment of the left ventricle. Currently, multiple open heart surgeries are performed to correct this problem. Our team’s goal was to help eliminate the need for the first surgery by designing and testing catheter deployment of a modified nitinol stent with improved patient matching. The idea of deforming the stent with a microsphere to better fit anatomically relevant infant heart geometries was explored, as well as the feasibility of the use of this deformed shape.
The project was sponsored by Spectrum Health Innovations—Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. It won several awards at the Design Expo:
Keat Ghee Ong (Bio Med/LSTI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $20,000 research and development grant from Georgia Tech. The project is titled. “Implementation of a Wireless Sensor System for Monitoring Mechanical Loadings at the Internal Fixation Plates of Rats with Segmental Bone Defects.” This is a one-year project.
By Sponsored Programs.
Ong is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering, the Portage Health Foundation Endowed Professor of Technological Innovations in Health, and an Affiliated Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Beauty products have come a long way from the days of straight milk and honey, and the technology to test new products is evolving, too.
Volunteers are needed to participate in an industry-supported study aimed at developing laser-based technologies for assessing the effectiveness of skin moisturizers and firming agents. Men and women over the age of 18 are needed, especially individuals over the age of 50.
The one-time measurements take less than an hour. For more information, contact Research Associate Abhinav Madhavachandran (Bio Med).
By Abhinav Madhavachandran.
Bruce Lee (Bio Med) traveled to the 9th International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies in Singapore from June 18-23, 2017, to give an invited talk entitled “Stimuli Responsive Biomaterials Utilizing Mussel Adhesive Chemistry”. Additionally, Lee also chaired one session in the “Stimuli Sensitive and Responsive Polymer Biomaterials” symposium in the conference.
Feng Zhao (Bio Med/LSTI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $310,000 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. This is a three-year project.
Replacement of diseased tissue requires that the implanted material not only have the proper mechanical strength, but it must also have a functioning blood distribution network (vasculature; veins, capillaries), and these are often difficult to manufacture. This project will seek to understand and mimic the structure and vasculature of three-dimensional (3D) cardiac tissue. The goal is to engineer a mechanically strong and functional cell patch for the regeneration of damaged heart tissue.
The proposed research will also provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as underrepresented community college students, to be involved in interdisciplinary stem cell and tissue engineering research. In addition, a series of seminars will be hosted to increase stem cell and tissue engineering awareness among the health community and public in the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan.
The overall objective of the project is to create aligned nanofibrous natural extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffolds for the biofabrication of a prevascularized anisotropic stem cell patch and elucidate the mechanism of microvessel orientation within the in vivo microenvironment. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are immunoregulatory, regenerative, effective in promoting myocardial regeneration, and function as pericytes to stabilize the microvessels formed by endothelial cells (ECs). These unique properties enable hMSCs to combine with ECM scaffolds and ECs to biofabricate an off-the-shelf or patient-specific prevascularized patch, in which hMSCs will play a dual role of stabilizing vasculature formed by ECs in vitro and orchestrating the regeneration of dead cardiac tissue after implantation. In this project, hMSCs will be co-cultured with ECs in a nanofibrous ECM scaffold to form an aligned capillary-like vasculature, and the effects of aligned nanofibers on the density, orientation and maturation of the microvessels will be investigated. The prevascularized hMSC sheets will be multi-layered and further matured in a perfusion bioreactor, and the role of physiological interstitial flow on the inter-connections, alignment and maturation of the existing microvessels within the 3D biomimetic tissue platform will be evaluated. If successful, this project could lead to the development of personalized or off-the-shelf cardiac tissue patches that could dramatically increase the success rate for the treatment of dead cardiac muscle associated with heart attacks.